


Four Lords a Leaping

by Feral_Female



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alien Worlds, Faulty Wrist Strap, M/M, holiday fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-12 02:46:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16864729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feral_Female/pseuds/Feral_Female
Summary: Trying to find the perfect gift for the man you love can be quite trying, especially when you’ve already treated him to an unbeatable gift last Christmas! Be that as it may, let no man, woman, or alien say that Jack Harkness isn’t determined to out-do himself. With a little help from his vortex manipulator, Jack is sure he’s hit on the perfect idea for a present for Ianto.Technology being what it is, a small hiccup occurs and Jack and Ianto end up on an alien planet with a wrist strap on the fritz and only twenty-four hours to get home in time for the big day. Can our OTP figure out the mystery of the Four Lords, fix Jack’s wrist strap, and make it to Mrs. Jones’ house before the children eat all the plum pudding?





	1. Chapter One - Should've Went With the Gift Card

**Four Lords a Leaping (A Holiday Jack POV Tale)**

**Chapter One**

**Should’ve Went with the Gift Card**

(Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.)

 

A tie.

All I had for Ianto was a tie. It was a nice tie. Dark blue with light blue flecks that would make his eyes just that much bluer, but still, it was just a tie. I sighed, slid the tie box back under my socks, and shut the dresser before he arrived home. Probably with his arms full of presents to stash under our perfectly decorated live tree in the corner. Ianto had embraced Christmas fully and with great zeal. I liked to think that part of his high color and giddiness about the holiday was due to me.

“Wow, cocky much, Harkness?” I asked my reflection in the mirror above my dresser.

Perhaps it was a bit egotistical, but I did make him happy, or I strived to do so on a daily basis. Loving the man as I did, pleasing him was as natural as taking a breath, and I did that a lot during the day. Both of our lives had grown fuller and more rewarding since last Christmas. We were now cohabitating…mostly. I mean we’d not officially announced it or sent out cards proclaiming that my address had changed from “Sleeping in a Hole Under the Water Tower” to “Shacking up with the Coffee Boy” but I was here all the time. All my clothes were here. And my toothbrush. It was an unofficial cohabitation. And Ianto was happy. Deliriously so.

“There’s that cock again,” I told my reflection before spinning away from the looking glass to stew over my lack of gifts a bit more.

Pacing the living room, I wracked my brain to try to come up with something better than the autographed Tennyson poems I’d gifted him with last year. That had been a stroke of brilliance. Maybe I should have paced myself and built up to such an amazing gift over time. Now I had to do better this year and so far I’d found the man I loved and shared a bathroom with a tie.

“You’re a terrible boyfriend, Jack,” I chastised myself as I flipped through last minute gift ideas in my mind. Why I was doing this I didn’t know. There wasn’t an online vendor who could deliver a gift before Christmas day in four hours. All the local stores were probably already closed, and the ones who weren’t had been picked bare by the hyenas who were last minute shoppers. Like me. “I’m a hyena.”

The door flew open and in rushed Ianto, his cheeks red from the weather, his beautiful blue eyes glistening with good will to all men, and his arms loaded with bags of food and wine and gifts he’d stashed in the archives so that I’d not find them and snoop. I liked to shake things: boxes, my ass, a nice boob, a hard cock…

“Wow, you’ve been busy,” I said, hurrying over to relieve him of the food and wine for tomorrow’s meal at his mother’s house. He gave me that sweet smile of his then stole a swift kiss. His lips were chilled.

“This is the first Christmas in years that I’m actually looking forward too. My Mum and family know I’m bisexual and with you. And well, you’re here with me!”

Ugh, he was chipper. And had obviously shopped like a madman. Now I felt even worse about my lone tie purchase. “Those aren’t all for me, are they?” I enquired as he began unpacking two large totes and placing the gifts just so under the tree, which was also just so. Everything was just so. Ianto was a just so kind of man. I liked that about him. His neatness played well with my kind of slovenly ways. Maybe slovenly was too harsh a word. I tended to pitch things then pick them up later. Things like my coat, my holster, my boots, my clothes, and my books.

“Of course they are,” he beamed up at me as he knelt by the tree to slide a slim box with silver paper and a blue bow under the heavy pine boughs. “I’ve been doing a bit every week.”

“Ah.”

He stood and took the wine and food bags from my hands. “Feel free to place yours underneath any time. I’m not one who shakes or pokes like someone I know.”

I smiled at his wink then turned my attention to the presents he’d gathered. “Right well, about that. What I got you isn’t really all that easy to wrap.”

“Oh? Is it a Ferrari? I’d be quite the dashing government agent if I had a Ferrari.” He laughed then padded into the kitchen, totes dangling off his arms.

“You don’t need me to buy you a Ferrari. Torchwood pays ridiculously well.” I followed him into our tidy kitchen. He chuckled and set into putting his purchases away after turning on the kettle. Maybe I should buy him an electric one like everyone else on this island uses. I could find one somewhere this late, I was sure of it. Only he disliked the electric ones. Said he preferred the call of the kettle and the preparation involved.

“True enough. So, if it’s not a car what could it be?” He asked over his shoulder as he placed fresh veggies into the fridge. “Can I have a hint?”

“Oh well it’s something that you’ll love,” I said and grinned, my mind scrambling for anything to say. He pretended to ponder as he loaded the fridge with milk and celery and eggs.

“Is it one of those gift cards to that adult online shop we peek at from time to time?” Damn. I should have thought of that. There was a dildo that would be perfect for Ianto’s firm little— “Oh, or maybe a monthly service for some gourmet coffee of the month club?”

Damn it. “Nope, even better.” I lifted my hand to rake my hair back to buy some time. My gaze touched on my wrist strap. “It’s a trip though time to meet the person of your choosing!”

Ianto’s mouth dropped open, the tub of butter hovering halfway above the shelf it usually rested on.

His eyebrows instantly tangled. “Seriously? But I thought you weren’t supposed to overuse your vortex manipulator because it did bad things to time.”

“Pfft. That’s what he told me but what does he know?” _A lot, Jack, a whole lot and if he ever detects your time jumps he’ll drop down out of the sky in that damn blue box of his and demand your wrist strap back. He’s a pain in the ass that way, you know it._ “I’ve been incredibly circumspect about using it. One little jump back in time to meet someone you admire and then back. What could go wrong?”

He bumped the fridge closed with his hip, his eyes now sparkling with excitement and his eyebrows quite merry. “Well, if you’re _sure_ it won’t cause the Doctor to be cross with us, I’d love to make a quick trip to Twickenham around 1840 or so to meet Tennyson in person. He had lost his son Hallam by then and was writing some of his most revered poetry after battling back the depression the loss of his son caused.”

“Twickenham it is!” I grabbed him and kissed him soundly. “We’ll go now and be back in time for morning tea. Maybe we can have morning tea with Tennyson!”

His eyes widened. “I might faint. I think I shall. Should I change? A suit and tie perhaps instead of jeans and a scruffy old Cardiff U. fleece?” He plucked at his sweatshirt which was far from scruffy. Ianto Jones didn’t do scruffy.

“Nope, go as you are. Makes it that much more spontaneous.” He grabbed his coat and I did the same. “Okay so, all I have to do is feed in the basic coordinates and destination time.”

I tapped away, glancing at Ianto at my side. He looked like a lad in line to see Santa. “I still think I should have changed into a suit. Seems more fitting to be well turned out when one is visiting a poet laureate,” he mumbled.

“You’re fine. Stop worrying.” When a glowing golden crack in time appeared next to us and I led Ianto into the Rift, keeping a tight hold on his wrist. I once lost a felon I’d been tracking back in the day. Somehow he’d slipped the restraints and made a leap into the undulating voids that bracketed a time jump. Never heard from him again. Time travel was not a thing to be tinkered with. Only those who are trained and knowledgeable should open fissures in time.

Stepping out of the Rift, two things occurred to me at the same time. One was that while my knowledge Twickenham was slim, but I was relatively sure it did not have four red moons or trees that hissed at you like angry cats. Two was that my wrist strap was sparking badly.

“Uhm,” Ianto said as the Rift snapped shut behind us. I scowled at the useless bit of technology on my wrist. “Correct me if I’m wrong but this looks nothing like Twickenham, or for that matter any part of the United Kingdom. There should be a pond that Lord Alfred skated on during the winter. There was no mention of carnivorous trees or red moons in the stories his son wrote about him.”

“Right, well, there seems to be a slight problem with the parts I pilfered from Geirr’s wrist strap. Damn Swede probably reprogrammed everything into Swedish language commands.”

“Oh smashing. Well, not to put too fine a point on things, but the trees are coming at us and they look quite hungry as trees go. Should we perhaps find a less forested area to contemplate the demise of your wrist strap?”

“Oh, yeah, probably so.” A tree took a swipe at us, its branches resembling clawed hands. A round hole which should house a squirrel was filled with barbed, bark-coated teeth. We both ducked and then ran. Not sure in which direction but away from the man-eating trees, if they were trees at all. Could be aliens. Hard to say without my wrist strap to scan them with. Ianto and I raced into a lime-green river which the trees, slow as they were, seemed unwilling to cross. Could be the slimy eel-like things that appeared the moment a person stepped into the water and attached themselves to your lower half right through your pant legs.

“This is a nightmare!” Ianto yelped as he ripped off one of the coal black leeches and heaved it at the trees growling at us on the river bank.

“You know I’m usually all kinds of excited to be sucked upon, but I do insist on dinner and a show first,” I said, tossed a bloodsucking eel/leech at a pinkish-yellow rock then raced out of the water, my fingers tight to the collar of Ianto’s coat.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been quite so uppity about my wrist strap. Had to be the Swedish command dialog or some other modification my old buddy at the agency had made. No way was it user error.

 

To be continued…


	2. A Time Agent's Work is Never Done

**Four Lords a Leaping**

**Chapter Two**

**A Time Agent’s Work is Never Done**

**Jack**

(Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.)

 

“Okay, so overall, how would you rate your holiday trip so far?” I jokingly asked while plucking a skinny alien eel/leech thing from between Ianto’s shoulder blades. He had lost his footing when I jerked on the collar of his coat and went for a short swim. It was kind of frightening to see him go under the choppy waters knowing that he’d lost that odd underwater ability of his. He’d come right back up, sputtering, and then slogged his way to the bank where there were no angry alien tree creatures. I followed, the bottom half of me and my coat sodden.

“I’m not sure I’ll be leaving a five-star review on this planet’s Yelp page. They need to speak to the natives about the lack of a warm welcome.” He shuddered when I tugged one last squiggly bloodsucker from his back. “Please tell me that’s the last of them.”

I ran a hand over the pale, chilled flesh that covered his spine. “I think so.”

“Thank God.” He pulled his wet shirt and coat back on then turned to face me. “Don’t blame yourself.”

“I was actually trying to blame Geirr.” A soft wind that carried a creosote sort of aroma with it blew over us. I turned my face into the smell to try to pinpoint its location. The trees stood on the opposite bank, shaking their limbs at us. A memory popped up as I stared at the alien life forms. “Have you ever seen ‘The Wizard of Oz’?”

“Of course,” Ianto ran his fingers through his hair trying to tidy it up.

“The first time I saw it was when it debuted in thirty-nine. Those trees remind me of the ones in the movie.”

Ianto stepped up beside me. “I’ll pass on ingesting any fruit that they may lob at us.” I chuckled at the comment. “Any idea where we are?”

“Well,” I tipped my chin up to study the four moons. “I’d say we’re somewhere in the Medalusa solar system, give or take a few galaxies. Those moons look vaguely familiar. John, Geirr, and I had a contract on a small gaseous planet in this general region. Our wrist straps shit the bed and so we used the moons to navigate the gas flows with.”

“So manipulator malfunctions are a common thing then?”

“Mm? Oh, yeah, damn things are notoriously touchy.” I continued to study the sky, inhaling quality, breathable air even if it was carrying the aroma of a recent fire. Ianto grunted. I looked from the moons to him. Poor thing. Soaking wet, covered with suck marks that I had nothing to do with, and stuck on some alien planet with no Lord Alfred Tennyson to talk poetry with. Ianto didn’t quite have the same zest for wild adventure that I did. I loved that about him because it helped keep me in check, to a degree. I did tend to run kind of hot most of the time. “But give me a few minutes to sit down and tinker and I can have us in Twickenham before you can say ‘Lady of Shalott’!”

“To be honest just getting back to Cardiff would suit,” he confessed as he continued to try to comb and fluff his hair. “A hot toddy and a warm shower would hit the spot.”

Now I felt like a real heel. “Sorry to muck up your Christmas Eve night.”

He gave me a shy smile, the kind that made me wish I was as good a man as he deserved. “You’ve not mucked up a thing. It’s just a little different than how I imagined it would be. It’s rather a spanking adventure so far.”

“Thanks for that. I’ll get us sorted out, don’t you worry. I’m sure our bad luck quota has been reached,” I said with a smile.

That was when a spear ripped through the damp bottom half of my coat, making a large gash and embedding into the sandy river bed with a THUNK that made us both jump.

“ _Really_? Do you know how expensive these damn coats are?” I asked as we spun around, my hand already on my holster, and discovered a large group of humanoid children with pale blue skin and ragged shifts that appeared to be some kind of bark – maybe hissing tree bark which would explain why the trees were so irritable - pointing more spears at us. I lowered my hand from my Webley and took a step to place myself in front of Ianto. If they speared me, I’d come back in a minute or two. Ianto wouldn’t.

“You were saying something about a bad luck quota?” Ianto remarked several minutes later as we were being marched through a village that had recently been burned to the ground. Nothing but smoldering ruins remained, which explained why I’d sniffed out the smell of creosote and wood ash earlier.

“Not even close to that being reached yet,” I tossed back over my shoulder. “You should have been with me that time I visited the space station that orbits the outer rings of Zera Tanslan. Now _that_ was a trip that tested even _my_ sunny nature!” We were shoved along a dusty path at spear-point until we came to a small clump of other blue-skinned children huddled around a small fire. I walked up to the tallest male of the group, sexist as that was, and addressed him.

“Hello! Cap’n Jack Harkness! And you would be?”

He backed away after flipping me off. I threw a look back at Ianto who, it seemed, was beyond shocked and wallowing in completely gobsmacked.

“Seems my reputation proceeds me.”

A child, perhaps ten or so, stalked through the charred grass and stood before me, chest out and chin high. On his forehead was some sort of odd swirling design. His eyelids shuttered sideways across his eyes like a reptile blinking, but I saw no discernible gills on his thin throat.

“Valley fire Four Lords!” the boy chattered then pointed skyward. I looked up at the moons, my mind churning up facts that I quickly discarded.

“Where did you learn to speak English?” I asked, and then offered him my hand. He spat at me. Okay. That was unexpected. Rude too, but mostly unexpected. “Right, well, perhaps my reputation has not only preceded me but has been—”

“Fuck John Hart valley fire Four Lords!” The lad – who seemed to be in charge or perhaps part of some royal family due to the ink on his forehead – pointed at my defunct wrist strap and then spit at me again. He was lucky we were being held at spear-point or I would have given him a firm talking to about his expectoration issues.

 “Yes, I have the same sentiment about Captain Hart,” Ianto mumbled under his breath.

“Wait, okay, I think I see what’s happened here. Obviously, John was here—” the entire gathering of blue kids in bark clothing spat on the ground. “As I was saying, John was here, and he’s done something that made the Four Lords angry? And since I have a wrist strap like John Hart everyone thinks I’m a bad apple like he is. But I’m not. I’m one of the good guys. Ask Ianto, he’ll vouch for me.”

“Oh yes, quite a good guy. Dashing too, a bit reckless at times, and far too taken with his own hair and smile, but otherwise quite the hero.”

I gave him a flat look that he quirked an eyebrow at. “I’m not taken with my own smile,” I corrected then returned my attention to Prince Spittle. “I’m not a Time Agent, not anymore, and so I’m not sure what you think I can do to appease the Four Lords.”

Fifteen minutes later, Ianto and I were shown what we were supposed to do to appease the Four Lords. We’d been led to cliff where one could seemingly reach out and touch the nearest ruby moon. Prince Spittle spoke commandingly at us for several minutes in a confusing mish-mash of his language and English, obviously learned from John Hart as most of the English words were filthy. Then he ran off leaving Ianto and I gaping at each other.

“So, anything fun in your pocket?” I asked after a moment of staring blankly at each other.

“Really? We’re standing on a cliff on some alien world being asked to fix something one of your old boyfriends—”

“Partner. We were just partners. Work associates really.”

His look spoke volumes. “Your old _work associate_ has buggered up and you’re flirting?”

I pulled off my ratty coat and spread it out over the charred earth. Then I sat down, took off my wrist strap, and laid it tenderly across my thigh.

“In all honesty I was wondering if you had something in your pockets that I could use to repair my wrist strap.”

“Oh.” The tiffy look left his face and he pawed around in his pockets. “I’ve not got much. My mobile, my stopwatch, my wallet, a wet pack of gum, and a crumpled sprig of mistletoe that I was going to hold over your head outside of the Tennyson house.”

“Always the romantic. Hand it over.” He dropped his possessions into my hands and then sat down beside me. 

“Any idea what it is they expect us to do?” he enquired, stretching his long legs out in front of him.

I opened his wallet and nosed around, giving him a wink when I found the two packages of lube tucked discreetly in a hidden pocket. His cheeks lit up like a street lamp.

“I think that the Four Lords are the ones who set fire to the lands these people once called home.” I opened his stop watch and pried the glass off with a pocket knife I carry in one of the pockets of my coat. Ianto winced when I began to dig out the inner mechanisms of his beloved pocket watch then laid them on the lining of my coat. “I also think that John Hart has been here and somehow royally pissed off the spitters.”

“He does have that effect on people,” he deadpanned. I had to agree. “But what is it _we’re_ supposed to do up here on this cliff?”

I looked up at the moons, which were rotating steadily in the sky as planets do. “I reckon in about two hours the closest moon will be in lined up with this planet and the Four Lords will let loose another barrage of fire that will incinerate the rest of this world. So, we’re expected to either fix the mess John has somehow created or throw ourselves off this cliff as an offering to appease the Four Lords.”

“One option does sound mildly better than the other. How is it you’re able to deduce things so quickly?”

I looked up from the bits and bobs lying on the blue satin lining of my coat and smiled at my boyfriend.

“It’s what I do. Deduce things and save people while looking damn good throughout. Hand me the lube, I think I have an idea…”

 

 

To Be Concluded…


	3. Magic in the Mistletoe

**Four Lords a Leaping**

**Chapter Three**

**Magic in the Mistletoe**

**Jack**

(Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.)

 

I tinkered, and I kept an eye on the sky. As the planet spun the moons drew closer and the orbit was considerably faster than the twenty-four hour one that I’d grown used to on Earth. I was feeling a bit jetlagged, or rightfully I suppose it would be spacelagged.

“Dare I ask why you’re lubricating the inside of your wrist strap?” Ianto asked about ten minutes into the haphazard repair job.

“Other than the fact that it gives me a giggle to see your face as I finger this sprocket?”

“Yes, other than that fact,” he coolly replied. Such a fun man Ianto Jones was. Always so dry. I did adore that arid wit of his, as well as a dozen other things about him. Such as his curious mind and work ethic.

“Well, the stabilizing sprog for the time path reset switch tends to dry up at the most inconvenient times.”

“Nothing worse than a dry sprog.”

“Precisely,” I sniggered and tinkered a bit faster, tiny parts resting on my thigh and the lining of my coat. “It’s a design flaw. Back in the day we’d always have to tear the damn things apart and spit on them to get the proper conduit flow reintroduced.”

“Ah, so that’s where you learned that trick.”

I glanced over at him. “I love that tongue of yours. Biting sarcasm delivered with musical Welsh vowels. If we weren’t about to be incinerated I’d roll you to your back and show you just what properly applied spit can do.”

One eyebrow danced up his brow. “I’ll hold you to that when we’re back home.”

I hurried to reassemble my wrist strap. “I wager the Four Lords base is on that moon,” I said while tightening the vertical time inducer down with the tip of my pocket knife. “So, we’ll have about ten minutes to locate the base, find the Four Lords, kick them in the balls, and go home for plum pudding.”

“Cake as the Americans say.” He pushed to his feet, brushed off his damp jeans, and leaned down to rub his hand into my hair, his fingers knotting just a bit as he tipped my head back and slanted his mouth over mine. The kiss was one of those hot, sweeping ones that he offered up only rarely. They made me kind of stupid and harder than a locust fence post in seconds. When his lips left mine I quirked any eyebrow questioningly. “Just in case we don’t make it back home for plum pudding.”

“Have I ever not gotten you home safely?” He smiled in that way that said he was biting back a scathing comment. “Just you watch and learn, buddy.”

I got to my feet and strapped my vortex manipulator to my left wrist. Ianto helped me into my coat and then I tapped in the coordinates. I didn’t tell him that I was guessing on the arrival destination. If I miscalculated and we ended up in a black hole and died…well, I’d not want his final moments to be filled with fear. To that end, I entered the last number, grabbed him, and pressed my lips to his neck, right where his pulse thumped, and spoke into his skin. Skin that was warm and smelled like the home that I’d searched so long to find. Whiskery cheek rubbed whiskery cheek.

“I love you madly,” I said into his flesh and then stepped into the amber time rift, pulling him along in my wake.

The trip was blink of an eye quick. One step in and one out, the tug of time and space snapping around us in that brief moment between planets.

“And I love you madly as well,” Ianto whispered when we walked out of the jump and into a corridor carved out of rock. “Well, this is foreboding. Also, I’d like to point out that I don’t vomit anymore so if we were to do this more often, I’m turning into a sturdy first mate.”

“That you are. Tasty too.” I licked my lips then pulled my Webley out of its wet holster. Leather took so long to dry. “If you were a quadruplet of aliens who were trying to burn another race out of existence, which way would your lair be?”

“They have a lair do they? That’s properly fitting for murderous types.”

“I thought so as well.”

Ianto gave the eerie stone hallway a long look up and down. “I say we go right. Right is always right someone once said.”

“Good enough. Stay behind me. You don’t have a weapon and I’m not letting you out of that promise you made me about mistletoe, spit, and turtledoves.”

“Turtledoves?”

I began walking, him on my heels, down the warm hallway. There were no offshoots or any signs of doorways. Just a long hall, perfectly rounded, as if a massive drilling bore had been used to clear a passage from point A to point B. We both paused when a shudder ran through the cavernous hall, shaking small bits of rock and dust from the ceiling.

I threw an arm over my head. Ianto did the same. The rumble stopped. “That was ominous,” Ianto murmured as he stepped up beside me.

“Mm, probably the Four Lords pulling their massive planet zapper across the room to aim it out the window.” I threw him a look when he snorted in amusement. He was delightfully disheveled. One rarely saw an unkempt Ianto. It was one of my favorite looks on him. “What?”

“Obviously you’re not a science fiction author.”

“Well okay, you make up a name for it right off the bat.”

“Firestorm cannon.”

Huh. That was actually pretty good. “This is why you write the stories and I supply all the derring-do.”

“I provide some derring-do as well on occasion.”

I smiled to myself. Yes, yes he did.

We moved along at a faster pace, him now at my side instead of behind me as he’d been told. Man never listens. No one under me ever listens. Might as well talk to the red stone walls surrounding us. Another tooth rattling rumble rolled over us, shaking the floor and walls. I threw my arm up, using my coat as an umbrella over my head and Ianto’s. Pebbles and dust rained down on us.

“We better get moving. I have a bad feeling,” I told Ianto. He picked up the pace, running down the hall on my left, stopping only to pick up a rock the size of a grapefruit for a weapon. After a sprint of more than a mile by the feels we skidded past a small antechamber, the door more suited for a child than two grown men, which is why we nearly missed it. “Short Lords?”

“So it would seem.” He took a step closer to the arched doorway. Knowing how his mind worked, I pushed around him and dropped to one knee.

“I go in first.” He started to argue. I pointed a finger at him. He clamped his lips tightly together, sighed resolutely, and then nodded.

“Try not to get dead.”

“I’ll do my best.,” I quipped then went to my hands and knees. I had to angle my shoulders to get into the chamber. Once I was in I stood up, gun aimed at the aliens who were staring up at me in surprise. Four of them, short little things they were, about the same height and age as the blue people down on the planet, only their skin was ruby red. Each one had a triangular sort of tattoo on their foreheads. They were gathered around a massive weapon – one that did resemble a cannon - that was humming steadily. Large shards of red crystals had been crammed into the back where one would load a cannon ball. My wrist strap vibrated, picking up the energy signatures of the crystalline energy pulsing off the…oh hell, the firestorm cannon.

“Someone’s been busy with their tinker toys,” Ianto said as he appeared at my side.

“Okay kiddies, where’s Mum and Dad?” I barked. The four lads – or lords I had to guess – threw themselves at us, tiny fists hammering away. It didn’t take long for Ianto and I get the petulant little lordling’s backed into a corner, although we’d both carry bruises on our shins for a few days. They tried several times to leap away, but we rounded them up and made them sit. It took several tries to get them to drop to their small red asses, but they did.

“Fuck you! Dickhead! King John fucks you!”

“I sense that Hart may have been in charge of the daycare for a bit,” Ianto muttered, rubbing his arm after one of the little shits had belted him.

“He does leave a lingering stench,” I sighed, crossing my arms over my shabby coat while I studied the frowning youngsters intently. “You keep an eye on them. I need to power down that damn contraption.”

“Firestorm cannon.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, the firestorm cannon, and then we’re getting to the bottom of this deadly temper tantrum.”

The four lords got a bit upset when I removed the glowing crystals from what was, in fact, an energy conversion chamber that seemed to be lightyears ahead of anything kids with spears could have constructed. Tossing the crystals to the floor then rubbing my hands on my pants to wipe off the toxic dust, I mulled over how John Hart had finagled his way into this society and what his impact had been aside from teaching both sides dirty words and rude gestures. I ran a quick scan of the red crystals, and not surprisingly, found out that they were indeed Medalusa quartz, highly prized throughout the universe as power sources.

“Here’s my guess as to what happened,” I said, making my way to Ianto who was glowering down on the little red lords like a sour, old schoolmarm. “John arrived with a purpose. Knowing that Medalusa quartz is worth a fortune and that this moon is the only place to mine them, he pitted one group of Medalusan’s against the other, helped one faction build a weapon to eradicate the other side, and then left with his rucksack full of valuable crystals.”

Ianto bobbed his head. “Sounds like him. So, now what do we do with this lot?” He waved a hand at the young heads of state. “Given what I’ve observed, I’d say the red ones ruled over the crystals and the blue ones were the miners. Perhaps Hart convinced one side to rise up against the other, or perhaps he simply fueled an ongoing situation. Whatever has happened, we can’t simply pop back to Cardiff and let them wipe out the Medalusan’s on the planet.”

“Nope, we can’t. And we’re not going to. We’re going to dismantle this damn cannon and scatter the parts far and wide. Then we’re going to jump back to the planet, with these four little warmongers, and mediate a peace treaty. How does that sound?” I asked the childish aliens seated on the rock floor.

“Fuck off stupid cockhead,” one of the four lords replied.

“Should make negotiations interesting,” Ianto commented as I pondered if paddling was a useful tool for a mediator.

It turned out that we didn’t need to tan any asses, although I was tempted a few times. It took us two days in Mendalusan time to get each side to agree to stop trying to spear and/or incinerate each other. The blue planet dwellers would mine the crystals from within the bowels of their planet and the red moon dwellers, all four of them, would oversee the sales. Which was how it had been before John Hart had thrown a spanner into the works. Greed. It made a man do things that rotted his soul, I knew first hand. Luckily, I’d bumped into a man who had helped me see the mold that was beginning to take hold in my heart. If only I could make John see that robbing and stealing and murdering people had a stranglehold on the good man that he used to be. After taking the four lords back to the fourth moon, Ianto and I went home.

We were, as they say, a day late and a dollar short. We’d missed Christmas by a good twenty-four hours, the plum pudding was long gone, and Mrs. Jones was quite put out with us. It took some massive wheedling and fiction weaving to appease her.

“Called away to work on Christmas?” Ianto’s mother had repeated as we nibbled on holiday leftovers the next day. “What kind of civil servants work on holidays?”

“Important ones,” I whispered to her, leaning over the platter of cold lamb she’d been gracious enough to serve us. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but we had to take a quick flight to sit in on a very tenuous peace talk.”

“No, really?” Mrs. Jones asked, her sight skipping from me to her son. Ianto nodded but added nothing to the fabrication, content to eat leftovers and watch me do my thing.

“Yes, really. I can’t divulge much but suffice it to say that our supply of raisins will not waver.”

“Oh well, that’s good. I do like raisins in my scones,” Mrs. Jones stated then passed me a reheated bowl of mashed potatoes.

“We do our best to keep the people of this fine country happy and safe,” I grinned then tucked in, our adventure leaving me ravenous and exhausted. We’d fallen into bed after returning and showering, and then raced over here for brunch and apologies. Even the present opening was rushed because of an angry mother.

“Torchwood. Keeping the world safe from raisin shortages since 1879,” he mumbled under his breath, his blue eyes sparkling with a bit of mischief. “Need to get that on some t-shirts.”

After we were well-stuffed on day-old leftovers, we sent Mrs. Jones to the parlor so that we could wash the dishes and get a pot of tea on. Seemed we were staying over to watch something on the TV and sip tea. It was the least we could do. We had missed our first Christmas with his family. Ianto had so been looking forward to it.

“I am sorry that we didn’t get back in time to exchange gifts or enjoy your mother’s plum pudding,” I said, drying a plate with a soft dishtowel as he washed, soap bubbles up to his elbows.

“We’ll make up for it next year. Yes?” He peeked at me. A lemony bubble floated up past his cute nose. I pressed close, settling my chest to his arm, and licked a hot line up his neck.

“Yes, and for many years after that,” I whispered beside his ear.

“Reach into my front pocket,” he breathlessly said. I hurried to do as he asked, hoping to find a long, hard dick. Instead I found a crumpled sprig of mistletoe that I pulled out and held over his head. “Kiss me before she shouts to let us know ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ is starting.”

I pressed my lips to his. He turned a bit, my chest sliding over his arm, until we were chest-to-chest. His wet fingers slipped into my hair. I cupped his ass with one hand, keeping the sickly mistletoe over our heads the whole while we licked and nibbled at each other’s mouths.

“Do I make you happy?” I asked as the bubbles beside us popped.

“Deliriously.” If he had the means I think the man would have purred like a tabby cat. “When we get back home, let’s put that tie to use.”

“Going out on the town are we?” I gave his ass a squeeze. His mother shouted that the movie was about to start.

“No, we’re staying in tonight.”

“Merry Christmas to us then.”

 

 

**And a Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate! We’ll be starting a new adventure in January (which still hasn’t told me its title) that will pick up where ‘The Witching Hour’ left off.**

**See you in 2019!**

**Yours in fiction,**

**Feral**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
